Posts Tagged: "intel corporation"

Intel is not the only chipmaker feeling the pinch from Apple’s decision to move away from third-party vendors for its device components. Reports from last November indicated that Apple was also planning on developing its own power management chips for use in its iPhone products… News reports have indicated that Apple has poached engineering talent from firms like Imagination and Qualcomm, including the former head of Qualcomm’s core communications chip business, in recent years. While many will tout the superior nature of Apple’s computing chip products, there will likely be few who point out the damage wrecked on the company’s suppliers and the potential of intellectual property theft which might be enabling the consumer tech giant’s attempts to further consolidate the personal computing market into its own hands.

This license, like many other Free Software licenses, require a legal notice to be given to the recipient when the software is distributed. Alas, it seems like Intel has not done so and as a result the distribution of Minix 3 inside the recent Intel CPUs could be copyright infringement… How can you pirate Free Software? Simple, if you do not comply with the terms and conditions of a Free Software license, then you have no right to distribute the software… Even though people who create Free Software might not necessarily be interested in monetary compensation, they are however usually interested in being named as the author. This is a right which is also part of copyright law in many jurisdictions.

October 30th was a very busy day for amici filing briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court on how the highest court in the nation should decide in Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC, a case in which oral arguments will be heard on November 27th. Many of the briefs filed on the 30th were submitted by some of the biggest names in the tech industry. Taking a look at briefs filed by this major companies, some of whom have been seeing great success in patent validity trials at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), it’s both revealing and unsurprising to find how the tech ruling class feels that the Supreme Court should decide in Oil States.

Intel’s claims are interesting, to say the least. If you actually look at the complaint filed by Qualcomm there is no admission, as Intel would have you believe, that infringing products would still be allowed entry into the U.S. just with a Qualcomm processor modem. Qualcomm is very upfront about what they are requesting, however. They are requesting the exclusion of products because those products do not incorporate a Qualcomm processor modem, but that is because Qualcomm owns the patents the cover that component so without using a Qualcomm processor modem there is patent infringement.

Eight tech companies owning a collective 115,000 patents announced the establishment of the High Tech Inventors Alliance (HTIA), an organization they claim is “dedicated to supporting balanced patent policy.” According to coverage by Congressional blog TheHill, the formation of the HTIA is intended to further debate on Capitol Hill over patent reform… The members of the alliance are your typical “Who’s Who” of the efficient infringer lobby… Every member of the HTIA, including Adobe, Cisco, Oracle and Salesforce.com all lobbied on issues related to the Innovation Act.

The recent earnings release from Intel also indicates that the company is increasing its investment in research and development. Intel reported that R&D expenditures were $12.7 billion over the course of 2016 and $3.3 billion during the fourth quarter. This was up from the company’s $12.1 billion investment in R&D during 2015 as well as $3.1 billion invested during 2015’s fourth quarter. Intel spent more on R&D than it did on marketing, general and administrative (MG&A), where the company spent $8.4 billion during 2016 and $2.2 billion during the recent quarter. Intel’s full year guidance for 2017 indicates that the company expects to spend a total of $20.5 billion on both R&D and MG&A this year.

Autonomous self-driving technologies may be grabbing headlines for vehicle manufacturers but it’s hardly the only direction in which carmakers are innovating. Infotainment systems bring a smartphone-like platform for software applications straight to the dashboard, providing everything from navigation assistance to streaming music services and even phone call capabilities. Knob-based radio and air conditioning controls are being replaced by touch-sensitive displays and voice-controlled services connecting drivers and passengers to Internet-based services. According to market research reports, the market for in-car infotainment systems is expected to rise from $14.4 billion in 2016 up to $35.2 billion in 2020.

IBM once again has topped the list of annual U.S. patent recipients, receiving 7,355 patents in 2015. This is the 23rd consecutive year IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other entity in the world. More than 8,500 IBMers residing in 50 states and territories and 46 countries are responsible for IBM’s 2015 patent tally. IBM inventors who reside outside the U.S. contributed to more than 36 percent of the company’s 2015 patents.

Innovation in the automotive sector was a huge story, both for the types of technologies being developed and the companies pursuing the R&D in that field. Drones and robotics also played a role in other top patent applications which we’re profiling today. Rounding out our list of top 2015 innovations includes an emotion analysis system for financial security, wireless charging schemes, low-power communications for wearable devices and a greenhouse window that can generate electricity while improving crop yield.

2015 was a truly remarkable year for innovation and we saw major trends in self-driving cars, wearable technologies, digital wallets and much more. I hope you will enjoy this top 10 listing, which includes innovations for providing water in arid regions, wireless charging systems for electronic devices and even the collection and retransmission of sunlight. Of course, as with all of these types of lists, the criteria used for inclusion on this list is subjective, based on my own personal preferences. Please feel free to let us know if you saw something particularly noteworthy in 2015.

We’ve been seeing a great influx of high tech companies entering the automotive industry this year, especially in the field of autonomous self-driving vehicles, so we’re not too surprised to see the issue of U.S. Patent No. 9134731, entitled Locality Adapted Computerized Assisted or Autonomous Driving of Vehicles. This Intel patent protects an apparatus for computerized assisted or autonomous driving of vehicles which has at least one processor, a policy generator operated by a processor to receive data associated with a plurality of vehicles within a locality and to generate locality specific policies for computerized assisted or autonomous driving of vehicles within the locality so that vehicles are driven in a manner that is adapted for the locality. This innovation is intended to improve the deployment of autonomous vehicles in developed economy markets, like America and Japan, where there are large populations of experienced drivers as well as strictly enforced codified traffic laws.

The top two spots on the list of the 100 most valuable brands are occupied this year, as last year, by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), respectively. These two companies have held their respective spots since 2013, when both were able to ouster The Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE:KO) from the leading position in the Interbrand study, which it had held since Interbrand began releasing the report in 2000. Interbrand’s top 10 global brands include a collection of Companies We Follow often here on IPWatchdog, including 4th-placed Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), 5th-placed IBM (NYSE:IBM), 7th-placed Samsung Electronics Co. (KRX:005930), 8th-placed General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) and 10th-placed Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN).

Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of the GeForce GTX 950 is its low price. Nvidia has typically stayed out of the low end budget GPU processing units, content to leave that sector to both AMD and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC). However, the GeForce GTX 950 retails for $160, representing a serious foray into the low end GPU market which covers most units selling for under $200. It’s not optimal for video games which utilize 4K resolutions but models handling those resolution sizes can cost many hundreds of dollars per unit, made worse by the fact that 1080p is still the pixel resolution standard for video gaming so the extra firepower is largely unnecessary as of yet.

A partnership between Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) has resulted in the development of a new non-volatile memory called 3D XPoint (pronounced “crosspoint”). The improved characteristics of 3D XPoint compared to NAND flash are on an entirely different order of magnitude. The increased endurance means that 3D XPoint would be able to undergo millions of write cycles whereas NAND can only handle tens of thousands before the component starts to deteriorate. Both Intel and Micron compare the speed gains of the memory chip to reducing the amount of time that it takes to travel on a flight from San Francisco to Beijing from 12 hours down to 43 seconds.